Tom Burick has always considered himself a builder. Over the years he’s designed robots, constructed a vintage teardrop trailer , and most recently, led a group of students in building a full-scale replica of a pivotal 1940s computer. Burick is a technology instructor at PS Academy in Gilbert, Ariz., a middle and high school for students with autism and other specialized learning needs. At the start of the 2025–26 school year, he began a project with his students to build a full-scale replica of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC , for the 80th anniversary of the historic computer’s construction . ENIAC was one of the world’s first programmable electronic computers. When it was built, it was about one thousand times as fast as other machines. Before becoming a teacher, Burick owned a robotics company for a decade in the 2000s. But when a financial downturn forced him to close the business, he turned to teaching.…